Hotels, apartments, offices, condominiums, and other similar multi-level buildings include doors which separate the corridor side from the stairwell side of the building. Those doors commonly include one-way security locks which are openable from the corridor side so as to enable people already in the building to use the stairwell exits, while preventing people on the stairwell side from gaining access to the rooms located on the corridor side.
Whereas the one-way security locks serve the useful purpose of denying corridor access to unauthorized people, the security locks have also proved hazardous during unexpected danger conditions. For instance, if the building exit at the base of a stairwell becomes impassable due to fire, all of the people attempting to exit from that stairwell are foreclosed from reentering the corridor because of the security locks, and therefore face serious injury from the spreading fire and smoke.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide an anti-security control which is operable in emergency situations to open the normally locked hotel door to permit people to pass from the stairwell side to the corridor side thereof.
Most states now require the installation of smoke and/or fire detecting and signalling devices in public buildings. Such detecting and signalling devices have been used in combination with other components as, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,468, to detect and signal the rise of water above a preselected flood indicative danger level. Since these detecting and signalling devices are equipped with a self-contained power source and since they are adapted for activation when smoke and/or fire contions exist, it would be clearly advantageous to use the devices in combination with the present invention to draw power to the anti-security control at such times that a danger condition is sensed.
Accordingly, it is a further object of the present invention to provide an anti-security control which is powered by and which is operable when a smoke and/or fire detecting and signalling device senses a dangerous level of smoke and/or fire.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an anti-security control which is operable to automatically open a locked door when a smoke and/or fire condition is sensed and which is also equipped with a release mechanism for manually opening a locked door regardless of whether the danger condition is sensed.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the invention.